Dynamic Digest: Week of 4/4

Dynamic Digest: Week of 4/4

Welcome to the Dynamic Digest, a weekly recap of the latest news happening in our industry. Want the pulse of what’s going on in enterprise software and analytics, performance management, cloud computing, data, and other like topics? We got you covered! This week in the world of technology, th...

Welcome to the Dynamic Digest, a weekly recap of the latest news happening in our industry. Want the pulse of what’s going on in enterprise software and analytics, performance management, cloud computing, data, and other like topics? We got you covered!

This week in the world of technology, the largest data leak in history happened, Amazon expected to hit $10 billion in annual cloud sales, Turkey began its investigation into a massive data breach, and WhatsApp moved to total end-to-end encryption.

If you haven’t heard about the recently leaked “Panama Papers,” you should get out from the rock you’re living under. Massive news hit this week revealing world leaders, billionaires, politicians, and celebrities have been involved in the largest data leak in history – an unprecedented 2,600 GB leak. The cache of 11.5 million records exposes offshore financial records of public officials and criminals around the world, indicating a corrupt web of law firms and big banks offering “financial secrecy and investments in low-tax regimes.” The documents were initially sent to German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung by an anonymous source and after a yearlong investigation with the help of International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and other media outlets, the documents were released on Sunday. The leaked data came from Panamanian law firm, Mossack Fonseca, disclosing accounts of offshore funds, tax evasion, and money laundering. The small (yet powerful) firm denies any illegal wrongdoing and has fallen victim to an apparent “hack.” Only a week into the leak, hundreds of global key figures have been exposed and are now facing serious charges, including high rollers in the United States. While the U.S. government is focused on investigating any possible illicit activity, this is sure to be the beginning of a long investigation for every government around the world.

Key takeaway: The largest data leak in history reveals a “global epidemic” over the illegal hiding of wealth via offshore shell companies from a large portion of the world’s leaders and criminals. While there are legitimate reasons to set up an offshore shell company, most of the leaked records reveal almost $21 trillion in wealth and it’s likely some of those funds come from sources like illegal weapons trade, human, and drug trafficking. This is a huge feat for investigative journalism, but it’s a terrifying look into our global financial system and the extent to which crime feeds into it.

Not ten thousand or ten million, but ten billion – ten billion is what Amazon Web Services (AWS) is expected to hit in annual cloud sales this year. According to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the cloud computing business is bigger after 10 years of operation than Amazon itself at the same benchmark. In the note to shareholders, Bezos praised the company for its immense success and hypergrowth, despite early stage critics skeptic of the new radicalized way of storing data.

Key takeaway:AWS continues to be the leader in the cloud computing market, with more than 1 million adopters from businesses of every size and almost every vertical. With the market expected to grow massively within the next few years, will Amazon remain the king of cloud or will its competitors catch up?

It’s not a good week for Turkey with the country experiencing what could be one of the “largest public leaks of its kind.” On Monday, personal data of more than half of the country’s population (nearly 50 million) was leaked online. The details of 49,611,709 Turkish citizens included a national ID numbers, citizens’ names, addresses, birth dates, birth cities, and a taunting message to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The hacker(s) uploaded the 1.5GB compressed bittorrent file containing the data, to a website called the Turkish Citizenship Database and comments suggest the hack to be politically motivated. Apparently, the number of individuals affected is comparable to those on the electoral register. The breach could potentially date back to around 2009 but the Turkish government has launched a legal investigation to determine when and how this breach happened. Additionally, the government is currently drafting a new bill that will increase protection of its citizen’s personal data.

Key takeaway: The Turkish government downplayed the breach initially, describing it as an “old story” with files stolen years ago. Regardless of when the breach happened, the fact is more than half of the country’s population was affected and much of the data is still very accurate. The government needs to assure its citizens they’re doing everything in their power to keep them safe, but downplaying a breach of such magnitude – not such a great idea.

U.S. Government take note, the encryption battle is just starting to heat up. After a year and a half long security project, the messaging giant WhatsApp is turning to complete encryption. Meaning? All communications on its platforms and across all mobile devices are now completely integrated with end-to-end encryption. However, all users must upgrade to the latest version of the software for their data to be completely encrypted. Because the company no longer holds the encryption keys, it will be unable to decrypt user’s messages or be forced to provide the government with personal data. Now the messages sent by the company’s one billion active users will only be seen (or heard) by the sender and recipient. So, if the government ever comes requesting user data, the company won’t be able to (even if they wanted to). The timing of the product is interesting given the recent Apple and FBI battle, but the Facebook-owned company has been working on encryption since 2013 – years before the high-profile case.

Key takeaway:WhatsApps move to total encryption is sure to add fuel to an already burning fire between Silicon Valley and the U.S. government. As more tech companies turn to stronger encryption, the discussion intensifies as to whether the government should be able to access messaging data in times of need (criminal investigation, terrorism, etc.).

We hope you enjoyed this week’s Dynamic Digest weekly roundup! Have a suggestion or preferred topic you would like to see next week? Tweet at us or leave a comment below!